The photographs of Anders Petersen stop the viewer thanks to a rare intensity. Whether by its unique characters, uncomfortable situations, unusual points of view, in a dense and contrasted black and white that raises more questions than it answers.

I am very interested in the presence of animals (dogs and cats), some of those beings with which Anders feels identified, characters that ultimately are the key of his images, beyond techniques and styles.

After 40 years taking pictures, the driving force is still the same. "I'm a curious man, that's it", he says, and that curiosity has not waned over the years, rather the opposite. "When you're getting older you think you know. That's not the case. You have to be careful with that. You don't know anything. You know less. The older you get, the less you know."

Second of a couple of posts with a selection of Ander's work with some excerpts from several more or less recent interviews. The first one here.

Anders Petersen is a Swedish artist born in Solna in 1944. More images and information in previous post.

«The more you talk about photography, the less it is about photography. It’s more about the conditions of life, people and it is more interesting than talking about technics, lenses and cameras. You are not supposed to be a slave of mechanical tools, they are supposed to help you and be as small and as unimportant as possible not to disturb the communication. That is what I feel when I shoot my pictures.»

«Home, on a very concrete level, is where I have my books. Books mean a lot to me.

On a mental level, no matter where the place is, my home is where I meet people that I can identify with, it can be in Japan or Stockholm, Helsinki or Moscow. The place doesn’t matter, it’s where I can identify myself with people. My home is everywhere.»

«When I was in the prison photographing for three years, it was difficult. Sometimes I even slept in my car outside the prison wall, it was really rough, I had no money at all and I tried to support myself as best as I could. Some collectors in France and Germany started to buy pictures from me, entirely unexpected, and I understood that a market existed, not in Sweden but abroad.»

«There was a guy in the prison who used the expression “to sharpen a pyramid”. This had a big impression on me, partly due to the poetic expression... He said that in the beginning you are at the bottom of the pyramid with all your so-called securities, food, television, radio, friends, girlfriends in his case, the drugs, the alcohol and all this, in my case the books. But no masterwork is done on the bottom of the pyramid.

Therefore you must go up in order to find a possible opening; you begin by questioning what you want to achieve. You peel it all away. It is a mental process. You peel and think all the time, you look in front of you, of what you want to do, how you do it, how the completed result will be, and the more you think about it, the more you project, the more dangerous you become. The further away from the bottom, the further away from all the securities and you become entirely unsecured and more dangerous, and up here exists an acceptance of insecurity, of risk taking and when you come up here, you are directly ruthless, dangerous and also extremely sharp. You are as sharp as the sharpest scalpel a surgeon can use. In order to reach the most hidden, the secret nerves, the scalpel must be as sharp as possible, and when you are there, there is fever and attack. I have worked my way and can come up in ten minutes today. It has to do with discipline.

Creativity has to do with discipline.

You can be very talented and nothing happens, it has to do with discipline. Focus. To focus on your objectives. The only way to reach them is to be as fast and sharp as possible so that you can open up, so that the photography doesn’t end up as illustrative but turns into another type of reality that has more to do about your own reality. An internal reality that deals with your memories, dreams, secrets, vulnerability and fear. And longing…very much about longing, no pictures without longing.»

«I think there always be people appreciating the old traditional classical analog technique. Always, always. Because its fantastic. But on the other hand, the technique that will develop, reach new levels, it will be the digital technique off course. Is no really used to learn to develop films, use special paper nowadays beacuse there is no so much future. But there will always be some passionated enthusiasts going your own in the dark rooms looking for the magic. The magic in the dark room. Because is magic. You hear the sound of the ringing water. And is absolutely low yellow, little bit red, and you have your developer here, and you put in a paper, and step by step, little by little you can see how is growing, like that. And that is magic. The light and the sound of the ringing water just adding something to these magic feeling. And is special. And you're absolutely alone. Is a kind of meditative thing.»

«It’s not really a style, for me it is an approach. It is more distinct for me, it doesn’t work that much with anecdotes and atmospheres. It works more with light and shadows. I’m interested in a distinct, sharp attack. That is not explaining anything, that has no answers, but has many questions. And the more questions and longings I can find in one cut, the better. If you are curious and patient enough, it brings a lot. You can open the door and the camera is like a key.»

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If you're an artist and find here images of your art you want to be removed, just tell me and I'll do it immediately. I try to ask for permission always if artist is alive and there's a way to contact, bot not always is possible and there are things I think worth to be known.

In any case, the copyrights of all the images contained in this blog, except where noted, belong to the artists or the legal owners of such rights, and have been published nonprofit and for the only purpose of make the works known to the general public.

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